Level of

Teaching Presented By :
Rukhsar

Learning
Roll No : 62
Submitted To:
Dr. Megha Sherstha
(Concept of Teaching)
LEVELS OF TEACHING-LEARNING

"Teaching-teaming situations may be classified on a continuum which ranges

from thoughtless to thoughtful modes of operation. ” - Morris L Bigge
For achieving -Ibis teaching learning task can be performed at various levels, ranging from least thoughful
to most thoughful behaviour or mode of action. Psychologists and educationists have clearly identified
three such levels of teaching- learning act, namely memory level, Understanding level and reflective level.
Memory level falls at the bottom (or on a three point rating scale at the extreme left) depicting the
involvement of least thoughtful behaviour and the reflective level at the top needing the involvement of
higher cognitive abilities and most thoughtful behaviour.
 "Teaching-teaming situations may be classified on a
continuum which ranges from thoughtless to
thoughtful modes of operation. ” - Morris L Bigge
स्मृति स्तर बांध स्तर चिंतन स्तर

चिंतन स्तर

बांध स्तर
(विचार युक्त)

स्मृति स्तर
(कम से कम विचार युक्त यानि विचार हीन)
Levels of teaching – learning represented
On a three point rating scale
Hierarchical order of the levels of
teaching - learning
 MEMORY LEVEL OF TEACHING-LEARNING

 Meaning and Definition

Teaching learning act at the memory level represents the involvement of the least
thoughtful behaviour. In such type of act memory plays a key role. The teacher presents
factual information before the learner. The learner tries to mug up these facts with the least
involvement of his thinking and reasoning power without any care of the understanding of
their meaning and application. It is in this context that Morris L. Bigge has defined this
level of teaching-learning as that type of act “which supposedly embraces committing
factual materials to memory and nothing else.”
Objectives
The teaching-learning act performed at the memory level is confined to achieve the knowledge objective in
the following way.
— Acquisition of presented facts through rote learning
— Retention and reproduction (through recall or recognition) of the acquired factual information as and
when needed.
Nature of the subject matter and its presentation
Memory level teaching-learning is predominantly subject cantered. It’s sole objective is effective
memorization of the presented material by the learner. For attaining this aim it should carefully attend to
the quality of presented material and its way of presentation. The material for this purpose should be
selected very judiciously for helping the students to get desirable knowledge of the subject.
The Role of the Teacher
The wide spread notions about these things can be summarized as below:—
Teacher plays a very dominant and authoritarian rote in the memory level of
teaching-learning. It is he who decides about the methodology for tin presentation
of the subject material before the learner. He organises and systematizes the
presented material, presents it merely through his. Owe initiative, makes the
students to listen or read, plan exercises for its repetition and drill work and asks
the students to memorize the presented factual information with the help of rote
learning, retain it and reproduce when asked to do so. In this way, teaching-
learning process becomes too much teacher cantered at the memory level teaching-
learning.
 The Role of the Learner
The learner has a quite passive role in the memory level of teaching-learning act. His mind is considered as a big store
house of the information or knowledge regarding various subjects. The teacher pours the knowledge and he is these to
receive it through mechanical memorization. He has no freedom or opportunity to gain learning experiences through his
own initiative or self efforts and then there is little scope for his interaction with the teacher in the teaching-learning
process. He has to make least use of his thought processes and depend merely upon the use of his capacity for
memorization.
 Nature of Motivation — As the students play quite passive role in the teaching-learning act performed at memory level the
nature of (heir motivation is largely extrinsic. There is nothing which may compeil them from within for taking genuine
interest and to feel spontaneous inclination towards learning something. They engage themselves in memorization of the
presented material due to external factor i.e. fear of punishment, getting favour of the teacher, passing out of a test or getting
promotion in the next grade, etc.
 The methods employed - The methods employed at the memory level are exclusively teacher, cantered or subject cantered
rather than the learner or situation cantered. Consequently, these are mostly non-psychological in nature. The methods like
lecture method, text-book method, lecture cum blackboard method, deductive method, narration method etc. all belong to
such category which are suitable for carrying out one way traffic by the teacher at the memory level of teaching-learning.
The Testing devices used - The teaching learning at memory level is primarily designed
for at training the knowledge objective through the process of mechanical
memorization. It prepares the students to have mastery over the subject matter in terms
of their adequacy for retaining and reproducing the material, presented to them at the
time of teaching. Therefore, here testing devices in the form of essay, short answer and
objective type questions are so designed as to test the realisation of the knowledge
objective at the memory level. In other words here we test the capacity of the students
for the exact reproduction of the memorizes material or factual information by measuring
their ability to recall or recognize the learned material through suitably framed questions.
The merits of teaching-learning at memory level — The teaching-learning carried out
at memory level has many things on its credit side.
1. Firstly, such type of teaching-learning may be found as to suit the very nature of the
small children to certain extent as their memory 'at the younger age is the rote memory.
They are very much capable of mugging up the things without caring to know their
meaning and use. In this patriot like cramming and reproducing the factual material
there is a least involvement of their thought processes. It may also suit the nature of
their cognitive development as they are unable to comprehend compare, analyse,
synthesize and generalize for enabling them to understand and apply the knowledge as
effectively as they can at the later stage of their intellectual development.
2. Secondly the task carried out at memory level in the form of acquisition of so many
memorized facts prove quite helpful in the teaching- learning activities performed at the
Understanding and reflective levels. speaking, the memory level teaching-learning provides
solid base for Truly erecting the higher structure of teaching-learning at the other two
advanced levels.
3. Thirdly the memory level teaching-learning give full freedom to the teacher for realizing
his goal i.e to furnish maximum knowledge of his subject in the form of systematic and
well connected pieces of information to his students in a quite planned way in a minimum
duration of period.
Demerits and defects of teaching-learning at memory level
Teaching-learning at memory level is denounced on account of its demerits and defects
summarized below.
4. It is carried out at the lowest level of the student’s thought processes and therefore provides
no scope for the development of understanding, thinking, reasoning and other essential
cognitive abilities of the students.
2. The emphasis here is on the acquisition of factual knowledge imparted by
the teacher through rote learning and mechanical memorization. It is very
difficult for the students taught at memory level to make any practical use
of their learning. There may be enough evidences of such failure in our
class room behaviour and in actual life situations. The students acquiring
the knowledge of the formula of the area of the four walls of a room may
not be able to compute the expenses incurred on the white washing or
painting on the walls of the room or an elementary class student after
having memorized all the odds concerning multiplication table may not be
able to compute even the total amount paid to a shopkeeper for purchasing
6 pencils at the cost of 24 paise per pencil.
 Despite the best efforts in such teaching-learning there is no guarantee of
good retention and appropriate reproduction of the memorized material
by the learner . The retention, as usually such, is quite short lived and
students many times are found to cut a sorry figure at the need of the hour
particularly at the testing or examination time. In this way, the short
purpose of the mechanical memorization is also not materialized
fruitfully in such type of teaching-learning.
4. Since the teaching-learning process is too much teacher dominated and there is no
proper interaction between the teacher and learner it leaves a little or no scope for the
proper personality development of the learners.
5. The memory level teaching-learning poses a problems of class control and securing
attention of the students for class room teaching. Motivating students on the basis of
fear and other extrinsic objects is also another weakness. Consequently the real charm
of self and purposeful learning is almost missing in such type of teaching-learning.
6. Here the total burden of handling the teaching-learning process falls on the shoulders of
the teacher. He has to arrange for the review, drill and effective exercise for the good
retention and easy recall. The students are quite passive and without their involvement
the teaching-learning process becomes quite dull, un-interesting and unchallenging.
 Conclusion
 With all what has been said about the de JUS and demerits of memory level teaching-learning it should not be
inferred that memory level teaching- learning is quite absurd and useless and therefore, should be abandoned at all.
However, the things are not as such. For the small children and at elementary level, as emphasized earlier, it may
prove quite beneficial. Similarly for the disciplines in learning where acquisition of knowledge, factual information
and memorization in the form of names, concepts, principles, formulae, symbols etc. is involved the memory level
teaching-learning may prove quite useful. Moreover what is achieved at memory level has all possibilities for being
utilised in the teaching-learning carried out at the understanding and reflective levels. One has to utilize the foot
board of memory level teaching-learning for jumping to the height of understanding and reflective levels, as may be
made clear through the reading of the coming pages of this chapter. However, we must be careful about minimising
its drawbacks by making it more meaningful to the learners. There is little use in memorizing the meaningless
material like nonsense syllables. If the learner is helped in drawing some meaning and purposes out of his
memorization labour, the yield may be more fruitful for the learner’s present as well as future welfare.
THANK YOU